Seven Ways to Recover from Anxiety After an Accident

Anxiety After a Car Accident? Here’s seven Ways to Recover

Life can be unforgiving. Sometimes, even after exercising all possible safety measures, you may find yourself at the wrong end of a road mishap. A car accident can cause serious emotional and psychological trauma, even after the injuries have long healed. If you are one of the roughly three million people who survive accidents each year, read on and see how to cope with anxiety.

Psychotherapy

A physician has to diagnose you and confirm that you are suffering from anxiety. He has to know if this psychological trauma prevents you from functioning appropriately in society. Depending on the severity of your emotional condition, the physician may advise you to take medication. The initial diagnosis will let you know if you need to speak to a psychiatrist or if a counselor will do.

Psychotherapy is the most sought after treatment for anxiety because the physicians are licensed and duly trained. Medication is not required. Their methods are proven to have helped individuals regain quality of life after a traumatic event. A car accident lawyer may be able to help you find a mental health professional who is right for you.

Meditation

Meditation is a centuries-old practice where you train your mind to focus and reflect on many things. Meditation promotes relaxation, which is a good practice to combat anxiety. It is also the intent of meditation to improve one’s internal energy, called Qi or Chi. Many consider meditation to be the best alternative to psychotherapy since meditation is not as costly as the former.

A particular form of meditation, called mindful meditation, is often used to address anxiety. Proponents claim that this kind of meditation even changes the brain’s structure and function to your advantage. All it takes is to meditate at least 10 minutes a day. Any beginner will start with breathing exercises and can, later on, move to more complex reflection activities.

Medication

Every person’s reaction to stimulus is different. Sometimes, the emotional trauma is so deep that an imbalance in the brain begins to occur. This imbalance causes hormones to take control, thus the uncontrollable anxiety attacks. Medication becomes imperative at this point.

You should only take medication if a psychiatrist recommends it. These medicines can calm your nerves during episodes of anxiety attacks. Medications such as this always require a prescription.

Defensive Driving

In some cases, the anxiety is so light that the person suffering from it can still function normally, except when they’re driving. After a car accident lawyer has settled all your legal affairs, you would think everything would be alright. But you begin to feel so many types of emotions like guilt, sadness, fear, and shame. All of these make you feel unqualified to drive.

In a situation like this, the best course of action is to take a defensive driving course. The instructor will teach you the rules of the road. You will learn techniques about the right of way and when to yield, and the right things to do in situations that might lead to an accident. This course will significantly boost your confidence and will help you get back on the driver’s seat again.

Self-Love

Self-loathing is what people feel after a crash. They hate themselves for not being careful enough, most especially so if the accident took the lives of others. Surely, your car accident lawyer may have gotten you cleared of all fault. Not everyone involved in a crash is guilty. This fact, however, will not prevent you from blaming yourself.

A key solution to this is merely changing your perspective. There are things in life that you cannot control, much less avoid. The first thing to do to pivot from this is to forgive yourself. After doing this, time will heal your emotional wounds until you are ready to move on.

EMDR

The complete technical term for this is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. This procedure is often used to patients who have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Experts believe that unpleasant memories can cause an imbalance in how the brain works.

The process requires at least 90 minutes to complete. The therapist will ask you to follow his hands with your eyes. The eye movement is expected to stimulate some areas in the left and right side of the brain.

The whole process involves reprocessing how the brain thinks. The therapist will let you move your fingers while thinking of good or positive thoughts, eventually erasing thoughts that trigger your anxiety. Every time you move that finger, the brain automatically responds with a positive emotion.

Hypnosis

Hypnotism is a widely debated science. But it works for many people. You can call it guided meditation where your brain enters another state of consciousness. Hypnosis puts you under intense concentration, to the extent that you do not recall the thing you did under the hypnotized state.

What it does is it allows you to explore your thoughts, including those that only appear in your dreams. Painful memories will resurface, thereby enabling you to deal with them and finally have closure. Like psychotherapy, you should only consult a licensed hypnotist.

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